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Junepbear: Out of the Closet

The folks at giantmicrobes.com have made a rhinovirus that looks a little like Junepbear.

It’s show-and-tell time again in the Joshua Tree classroom.

Last week, when I asked, Mbot wanted to bring what’s known around this house as The Cold Book (to the rest of the world, it’s Your Body Battles a Cold, by Vicki Cobb, Andrew N. Harris, and Dennis Kunkel), and which is to the common cold what The Stomach Book (Your Body Battles a Stomachache, by the same trio) is to throwing up. (See Recycle Robot vs. Sister Mary Villus.) He got it for Christmas. Now he wants to be a macrophage for Halloween. (For those of you who aren’t students of physiology, a macrophage is the blobby white blood cell that devours bacteria and other dead macrophages and ends up as pus. It’s a good guy.)

“Gbot, you can be a rhinovirus,” Mbot told his younger brother.

“No!” replied Gbot petulantly. “I want be Batman!”

Mbot: “But Mom, Batman doesn’t go inside the body!”

“It’s okay, Moon Pie. He can be Batman. I will be the rhinovirus.”

The sacrifices we make in the name of motherhood.

But yesterday when I asked, Mbot asked if he could bring Junepbear to show-and-tell. “Yes,” I told him, inwardly cringing.

Because Junepbear is…well…so loved. So sacred.

He’s the giant blue bear Mbot has had since birth. His extravagantly raggedy fur has absorbed blood, sweat, tears, chocolate, dust, and love. What if a friend makes fun of him? Or asks why his feet are so dirty? Or tells Mbot he’s not real? Or that he’s babyish? What if they make fun of his name? Or are mean because they’re jealous because he’s really a big, cool bear?